Five Random Action Figures, Part 25!

Waaay back in the 2nd edition of Five Random Action Figures, I reintroduced you to General Spidrax, the lead villain in Coleco’s Sectaurs toy line, famous for its battery-operated giant insects that flapped their wings like portable fans. That was some sentence.

Prince Dargon was the lead hero. Though the Sectaurs line is mostly remembered for its beasts of burden and giant playset, the action figures were law-defyingly good. They were like He-Man figures mixed with G.I. Joe figures, better because they were bugs.

Steve the TrampDick Tracy (1990)

Ah, the infamous Steve the Tramp figure! Part of the Dick Tracy movie line, Steve was undoubtedly one of the least desirable picks, second only to Sam Catchem on the “I’m only buying this because KB Toys has nobody else” front.

What made Steve so legendary wasn’t his bumpy face or “found wood” accessory, but rather that the figure was recalled over complaints that it was insensitive to the homeless. “Homeless” is hardly the first word I’d use to describe Steve, but without the context provided by the film, I can’t say that I’d disagree.

Weirdly, even after word of Steve’s “recall” spread, I still saw him all over toy stores. Years after the Dick Tracy push ended, when all of the figures were on clearance and every plastic bubble was crushed, I still saw Steve out in the wild. (Like an idiot, I bought several, believing them to be “investments.”)

I tend to believe that there was less of a “recall” and more of a “discontinuation,” which was just Playmates’ way of saying, “We’ll go ahead and stop doing what we’d already decided to stop doing.” After all, the only kids who requested Steve for Christmas worshipped Satan.

T-1000Terminator 2 (1995)

Don’t cry foul — I know it looks crude, but that’s a legitimate, licensed T-1000 figure. Released by Toy Island in 1995, here’s what I’ve gathered, based entirely on conjecture:

Terminator 2 came out in 1991. Kenner scored the license to make toys, and they made a lot of good ones. After profits stalled, they took a break. In swooped Toy Island, likely on a cartoon pterodactyl, with its sights set on a degraded and thus newly affordable license. Course, by then it was 1995, and nobody really cared about Terminator 2. That’s why Toy Island didn’t go buck wild with the articulation.

I really have no idea if any of that is true. It sounds true, though.

The figure is modest, but I love it. It looks like they took a generic soldier figure, spray-painted it silver, and melted the foot. I’ve always dug “simpler” figures like this, so it’s fortuitous that all of today’s toymakers are cutting every corner to stay alive. Really, this is all I want. I don’t need snap caps, or shoulder slots for USB cards. Don’t tell me how to play.

Armorkillo & WartSnailiens (1992)

I’ve gotten sooo many requests to cover Snailiens over the years, so here I am, covering Snailiens.

The figures were basic and unarticulated, but boosted by the inclusion of snap-on battle suits and weird little “pets.” Each figure also came with a rubber “cup” that let you launch their accessories like catapult ammo, but IMO, that was definitely a case of painting the peacock.

I’m not the only one who considers this series the spiritual successor of Battle Beasts, which shared the same level of impressive details on decidedly diminutive frames. In layman’s terms, both lines had animals dressed like killer spacemen.

One of Kenner’s smallest Star Wars figures, I have big fat sentimental attachment to this guy. Story time!

Back in junior high, I discovered the classifieds in the back of sci-fi rags like Starlog. There I found my first (and at that point, only) opportunity to collect old toys. Dealers would send me poorly xeroxed copies of their catalogs, and I’d just sit there in stunned glee, unable to believe that I could really buy Star Wars figures again.

Without much cash (and a bit too old to be asking my parents for “toy money”), I’d order things very slowly, and always opt for the cheapest items. At the time, loose Star Wars figures in shitty condition with none of their accessories ran for 3-4 bucks at lowest, and only if we’re talking about the most common and least popular figures.

I was dying to buy one of the vintage vehicles, which would’ve been the first in my new/old collection. (That is, if you discounted a few junked ships and 1/3rd of the Ewok Village, which were leftover from childhood.)

Even the smallest vehicles went for a fortune by my standards. The only one that I could afford was the Ewok Glider, for twelve bucks. It wasn’t the Millennium Falcon, but you gotta start somewhere.

When it arrived, I was floored. The dealer threw in the vintage Wicket W. Warrick figure, free of charge. (An act of kindness for sure, but not exactly a random one. Back then, you had to call dealers before buying anything, to reserve your items. When that guy heard my puberty-fucked voice asking about Ewok Gliders, he obviously knew that I was a kid.)

Since Wicket alone was worth as much as the Ewok Glider, this was a momentous occasion. I’d later learn that plenty of dealers were absolute garbage, so it’s nice that one of my first experiences was with such a good one!

As much as I loved Sectaurs, I was still a little apprehensive about sticking my hand into a glove attached to a large furry beetle. It still gives me a shiver down my spine just thinking about it. Back then, if it had more than 4 legs, it creeped me out.

I think the biggest issue with the Dick Tracy figures was, they just weren’t crazy enough. By that point, we’d had a few years of TMNT, so a bunch of odd-faced guys in regular suits just wasn’t going to cut it.

I have fond memories of the Kenner T2 line. Sure, there were a lot of Arnold figures, but you could always pretend some of them were evil. You’re probably pretty close to describing how Toy Island got the T2 license. I’m willing to bet it was the same with the Robocop license, and the Mortal Kombat license. And in every case, they were pretty shitty figures.

Sammy Hain

The only Wicket was a digital eraser which I judged being close enough to scale

You missed out — Sectaurs was an unbelievably great line. They’ll never make ’em like that again.

You mentioned TMNT — one of the things I liked about the DT line was how they were pretty much in exactly the same scale and made the same way. (Unsurprising: Both were from Playmates and existed simultaneously.) But yeah, there were some weaker ones in the bunch. Even Big Boy — lead villain — was kind of a dud objectively.

Oh don’t get me wrong, I loved those Sectaur figures. But the companion bugs…agh. It’s one of the many lines I definitely appreciate more now. Sadly, I don’t remember seeing them in Roses or Ames. I found both of mine in some random dirt floor store my folks and stopped at.

I call the Dick Tracy figures boring, then I realized I owned what had to be the more boring character of them all; Shoulders. Even Dick Tracy looked weirder than that guy.

Sammy Hain

I believe I remember that. That’s how you get the reputation as the Ewok sniffer in the back of the classroom

SupraGenius

Never seen a Snailien before. I’d have dug those when I was a kid. I seem to remember the Terminator toy line to have a bunch of odd figures like that. I think there was some sort of a run of future wars toys or something like that?

Dewey Defeats Truman

Probably not the best idea to read these posts right after (trying to) convince myself to not impulse-buy something from my childhood.

Pirate John

Glad to hear you mention Snailiens at last! (I’m one of the ones who requested it.)

This also seems about as good a time as any to plug my own video review of them:

Ah, I had some Snailiens. Nifty goofy little line. That was pretty cool of the dealer to do, good story.

Doctor_Who

Thank goodness this article came out AFTER the weekend of ComicCon Cleveland. I spent enough on old toys (got me a Baroness, a Springer, and some denizens of Mos Eisley whose names I’ll have to look up). If I’d just read this article, I’d be asking everyone if they had Snaliens and Sectaurs.

Doctor_Who

They can always claim he’s based on the comic book version, which is usually PG-13 at worst.

SHAEGGY

Ah, Sectaurs. I was privileged as a child to own not only the massive U.S.S. Flagg aircraft carrier, but also the second largest playset ever made: the Sectaurs’ Hyve. While massive enough for six-year-old me to completely hide behind, it really was merely half of a blowmold shell that, aside from its sheer mass, didn’t have a lot going for it. The jail hold cell was probably the coolest part…and I seem to recall a trapdoor area similar to that of Snake Mountain. The oddest inclusion had to be the top-mounted wrecking ball on a string action feature. I actually came across a MISB Hyve at a K.C. comic convention some six or seven years back that the dealer had a $99 tag on…luckily, it sold before I came back through a second time at the end of the show because I don’t know if I could have resisted new, old stock of a childhood playset for that price when I still had cash burning a hole in my pocket at the of a con.

SHAEGGY

I received the Steve the Tramp figure one Christmas (or birthday) from my grandparents, along with Dick Tracy and The Brow…I was disappointed not to receive The Blank, especially as Steve the Tramp was, like you wrote, by far the least cool villain figure from that series. As I recall, the supposed recall of the Tramp figure wasn’t so much about it being insensitive to the homeless as it was that his blistercard’s bio stated something about him either corrupting youths or abducting kids…and that bio line being possibly interpreted as inappropriate fondling of the kiddies by busybodies of the Tipper Gore persuasion.

Oh god Snaliens! The rubber shell was so awesome. It was a thick rubber too, and when you set it off on the ground it would fly up and hit the ceiling. They also had a hell of an ad.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLABasuuGBQ

Why do I have no memory at all Snaliens? I guess it really was kind of obscure. I loved me some Battle Beasts, though. Another great, kind of obscure one I loved back then was Starriors. That line had some incredibloy cool toys, especially the Cosmittor.

I know this is a small thing to point out, but one I thing I love about the Star Wars toy line from back then (and I think they’ve kept it up), is the design of the boxes they come in. There’s something about how uniform it is, with that same font and layout on every box that really gets me excited. They manage to graphically make even the smallest, most obscure vehicles look incredibly cool. Like, I couldn’t wait to open that thing up and start playing with it. For me, it always seemed like a major event to get a new toy from one of my favorite lines. The anticipation of it was just as exciting as the real thing.

tombo

Man that ewok dealer must have some good karma and a beautiful soul. I want to be more like him from now on.

tombo

My kids would love Snaliens. I wish I could get them the whole set. They like cute monsters. Theres a current line of fisher price imaginext monsters I like – human shaped monsters with big rider monsters – like some cute lovecraftian things – they are the next best thing around right now.

Shit, no wonder I could never find him. I had almost all the figures (I never had either of the cars) with the exception of Steve the Tramp, Flat Top, and The Blank. Those are the only ones I couldn’t find in the stores and it would be many years before I found out the Madonna figure apparently wasn’t released in America.

dwite fry

Snaliens, Sectaurs and Ewoks oh my!
I have literally nothing intelligent to add to what’s already been said, so that can be my comment for this installment of my favourite thing you post on here

CMP

When I was 9 or so I remember a young guy who was dating my aunt at the time (she was a bit of a cougar) was deep into collecting Star Wars figures. He introduced me to the toy collecting ways by, as Matt mentioned, classifieds in the back of Starlog as well as toy magazines. I was blown away. He had binders of xeroxed catalogs and bins of carded and bagged figures. It was a world I never knew existed. It’s okay for ADULTS to buy toys for THEMSELVES?!

So hundreds of Comic cons, flea markets, and eBay auctions later I have a enormous bin filled with over a hundred carded Star Wars figures. A majority of them are of the “Power of The Force” line so they’re not much of an investment. But I did have intercourse with my first girlfriend on top of the bin so I got that going for me. Not all of them are mint now though.

I am quite fond of the Ewoks and am a die hard Battle for Endor fan. I only had one Star Wars figure growing up and that Ewok was it. In regards to Dick Tracy, the brand has always been a little bit of a PR nightmare. Biggest one I can recall comes from the old cartoon series (really old) and a quote from ForeverGeek.com (The Dick Tracy cartoon was one of the biggest offenders when it came to unfair depictions of Asian-Americans. It wasn’t that the character of Joe Jitsu was an idiot. To the contrary. Most villains simply couldn’t match him for wits and braun. Whenever a villain like the Mole thinks they have the jump on Joe, he simply uses his karate prowess to fling them around and mash their heads into the ground while repeating, “So solly (sorry)” over and over. He’s also about one fourth the size of the other characters and his face is drawn in typically offensive scrunch with a yellow complexion.) Also, the depiction of characters like Willie Wheeler in the comic strips were called into question. Showing the African American neighborhood to be a run down barren wasteland of mental illness and depravity. It’s certainly understandable that the franchise was handled with kid-gloves as of the 90’s.

Matt, we share a very similar experience with acquiring our “2nd” star wars collection. I saw an ad printed in the back of a Comic Book price guide in the early nineties that had Star Wars toys for sale at ridiculous prices. I had to ask my Grandma to write me a check as that was the only option I had to pay for the toys. I ended up getting 8 figures for around 25$ all in great condition.

Brando

“Now do you want to give the kid a piece of chicken?”

Steve the Tramp was always my favorite Dick Tracy villain (besides The Blank)! That was such a good movie!

Betsy

Wicket was one of the Star Wars toys my brothers allowed me to claim as my own. I used to like to flip his bib (?) up so it was sticking straight out. I must have done it a lot because that is a weird thing to remember. I think we also had the medicine man ewok and I was mildly afraid of his mask.

Teddy Ray

You’ve put together a great list, as always, sir. With the exception of Star Wars, I didn’t even own any figures from any of these lines. I had a handful of Star Wars figures…mainly from Return of the Jedi, I believe. In fact, I may have had Wicket, but I could be wrong. I know I had at least one Ewok…I may have had two or three, though, I can’t really remember.

I see a lot of love for The Blank in the comments. When Dick Tracy came out, I was excited for it and really wanted to see it. I didn’t get to see it in the theater, but I remember being obsessed with The Blank. It’s nice to see I’m not the only one. Was anyone else disappointed when they found out that (SPOILER ALERT FOR A TWENTY-SIX YEAR OLD MOVIE) Madonna was The Blank?

I remember the hunt for the elusive The Blank action figure. It was talked about in hushed tones and whispers at playgrounds, arcades, and public pools. We searched but never saw it.

starwenn

Wicket is the big one for me here, though not that version. He (and fellow Ewok Chief Chirpa) were among the first figures my brother got in the late 90’s. I still have both. I vaguely remember “Sectars” and Steve the Tramp, though surprisingly considering our fondness for “Dick Tracy” and epic “He-Man” style shows, we never had any of the figures.

Ronnie

“But I did have intercourse with my first girlfriend on top of the bin so I got that going for me. ” Please, tell me more. .That sounds like a fucking amazing story (pun intended).

CMP

It’s not much of a story haha.

I was 19. Girlfriend and I went to a family get together at my mom’s condo. We were feeling frisky. Too many people in condo. Told family we were “going for a walk”. Went down to garage. Went inside my mom’s storage unit. I previously moved out but still had several large bins of Star Wars and other collectibles/toys in storage unit. Storage unit was very cramped. Things started to get hot and heavy. Played sex tetris (sextris) to find plausible position for coitus. When found I proceeded to shatter all preconceived nerd notions by having intercourse with an attractive young woman on top of my Star Wars collectibles.

Months later we went our separate ways but I’ll always have these crushed non mint Yak Face and Bib Fortuna figures to remember her by.

I had exactly one Sectaur figure back in the day–it was the cheaper Prince Dargon with glow-in-the-dark bits that came with a smaller bug that snapped onto his back. He was neat, but the Marvel tie-in comic was better.

And Toy Island? There’s a flashback to the days working at TRU and their line of figures from the first Brendan Fraser my Mummy movie. Figures that were still warming the pegs by the time the Jakks Pacific Mummy Returns toys came out.

Christian

Steve the tamp reminds me of the character Marv from Sin City the movie. Only up to about 5 years ago i found 3 of these figures still in the package at a indoor farmers market. They were in a small 5 and dime store in the toy isle for 5 dollars a piece. The cool thing is that i didn’t find them at a collectors store, but just in an ordinary toy isle with a bunch of other super cheap toys. The store person probably has no f’n idea what Dick Tracy was, but now that i think about it i should have asked where he got them from. I only got one of them and my friend also got one. I had the first impression that they were probably there because of Steve’s occupation, and now your article proves that theory.

Once again your website is a first again for me, the first time i saw or heard of Snailens. Can’t believe i missed them because i was more into toys in the 90’s than 80’s. It kind reminds me of Street Sharks with the bright colors and ability to move little or not at all, lol.

I loved my Wicket figure, and i also liked your story. That story is exactly what i like to hear as a fellow toy collector. I also respect that fact that your on the Ewoks side, and not those A-hole Star War’s fans that make fun of them or hate them. That’s because there were young adults in the horrible 70’s, and we were blessed with being kids in the early 80’s.

My older brother had a ton of the original Star Wars toys. Unfortunately they were scrapped in the Great Moving Day Purge of 1988. 🙁

Sensei John Kreese

Trust me, I know the feeling.

“Wait, why do we have to throw away MY shit?” 🙁

Linden Rathan

This has happened quite a few times over the years as I’ve followed your sites Matt, where I find out about something I didn’t even know I wanted. Today it’s that Toy Island T-1000. It would just look too good on my toy shelf. As if the figure wasn’t already great, the packaging for that figure is also amazing. I want to crop the bottom right and put it on a shirt.

My Mom worked at Toys R Us for about 6 months back in the day, using her discount to get that T-1000 was a HUGE win.

MrSokar

I have to commend Toy Island for managing to make the T-1000 look both really cool and crudely cheap at the same time.

MrSokar

Her acting seems to leave a lot of people feeling that way.

Zycrow

This article caused me to briefly disappear down a Dick Tracy rabbit hole, so, thanks! I had a figure of The Rodent (apparently known as Rhodent in the original stories) who was one of the five guys that get gunned down at the start of the film. The little pharmacy where I’d gotten the figure had a lot of early 90s stragglers hanging around – undesirable TMNT figures, off-brand transforming robots, that sorta stuff. I remember looking at the other figures on the back of the card and trying to find some of cooler-seeming ones. But the Rodent was the best I could find.

When I first saw the movie, it was after I’d gotten the figure, and I was pretty sad to see my guy die so quickly. I kept waiting for him to pop back up again somewhere. That movie sure is an odd piece of cinema history…

Thank you for reminding me of “Snailiens” I had such a wave of nostalgia I started tearing up. My late mom bought me “Jefferson & Jet” and until now, I couldn’t remember what it was called. Hit me in the feels.